Yngvild and the Forest of Dreams

Alfarinn's Injustice

We stayed in place the following morning. Noren wanted some time to think more on the tests that were mentioned, and he thought it might be useful for me to ask Jafnadr what she knew about Alfarinn. Once we'd stretched our legs and eaten some breakfast I settled against the large tree we'd slept under and laid Jafnadr across my lap. 

'Jafnadr, I'd like to talk to you about Alfarinn.' I thought. 

'What I know about Alfarinn is old news.' she replied. 

'Old news?'

'You need to understand my limitations. I know what my wielders know, and I perceive the world through their senses.'

'So you only know what I know?' I was a little puzzled, Jafnadr had seemed more aware when I'd spoken with her before. 

'Not only what you know, what every single person who has wielded me knows.' Jafnadr said. 'and when I am fully awake I can sense what those near me know, even if they do not touch me.'

'When do you sleep?'

'I sleep when I do not have someone to wield me.'

'You mean every time I let go you fall asleep?'

'No. When my wielder dies, or gives up carrying me, then I become dormant. It takes a little while, a few weeks, and then I lose consciousness until someone else picks me up.' 

'Is that what you mean about only having old news about Alfarinn?'

'Yes. You know almost nothing about her, and my last source of news was before you were born.'

'I think I understand. Please tell me what you can, it might help Noren meet her.'

'Alfarinn is one of the oldest heroes still living. She has lived nomadically for centuries. She is usually accompanied by a group of her daughters, the last I knew there were four of them. Mostly they have had mortal fathers, and Alfarinn is only ever known to have borne girls.'

'So Noren would be an exception?'

'Yes. Her only recorded son if what you have been told is true.'

'Could it be wrong?'

'Of course. We only have the word of the woman who delivered Noren to Old Bjorn that his mother was Alfarinn, and that was revealed much later as she had been under a compulsion not to tell.'

'Old Bjorn forgot to mention that.'

'Old Bjorn forgets to mention lots of things.'

'I blame his advanced age.'

'Alfarinn has a reputation for being flighty, and hard to pin down. She is also a woman of her word, and when she promises something then she always delivers. She takes a very dim view of people that do not honour their word, and and even dimmer view of those that betray others.'

'So she'd see someone who betrayed her as a personal injustice?'

'Definitely. There were rumours that she'd gone into isolation a couple of months before Oddmundr was killed. She was reported to have been furious at just such a betrayal.'

'Old Bjorn mentioned that he'd given her some advice that turned out to be wrong. Do you have any idea what that might have been?'

'I was there when he gave it.'

'What was it?'

'Rojden's one of the good guys, you can trust him.'

'So does she think that Old Bjorn betrayed her?'

'I can't be certain until I get close to her, or someone who knows for sure why she has hidden herself away all these years.'